The SDGOP spin blog briefly notices Attorney General Mark Vargo’s suggestion to Seth Tupper that we ought to pick our Attorney General nominees in primary elections rather than party convention votes. But the Republican mouthpiece doesn’t delve into one of the reasons A.G. Vargo may be making that suggestion: that, in addition to being an irresponsible killer driver, the last A.G. Republicans picked at convention was a crappy manager:
Q. What was the mood of the Office of Attorney General when you took over after the impeachment and removal of your predecessor?
A. I would say that it was certainly very apprehensive. There are a lot of people here that didn’t know me, but I also think that under the previous administration there was a great reluctance to be innovative or to take initiative, because of a fear of repercussions. And it appears that there was mostly a top-down management style, and a top-down management style from people with not a great deal of experience, which is a really bad combination.
Q. What’s an example of that?
A. There are extremely experienced people running the Criminal Division, and as a guy who supervises felony attorneys, I certainly want to be apprised of what’s going on in major cases, and I may talk through those cases with somebody. But it is very rare for me to substitute my judgment for their own when it comes to what the disposition of a case ought to be.
The people that are directly involved have much more knowledge of the circumstances of the case. They usually have a personal relationship with a victim’s family or a victim. And while I expect that I’m the one that’s going to have to answer press inquiries if something happens, I largely let my people make decisions, and I think that was very much not happening at times here [Attorney General Mark Vargo, interviewed by Seth Tupper, “Q&A: Consider Primaries for Attorney General Nominees, Vargo Says,” South Dakota Searchlight, 2022.10.25].
Inexperienced managers often lack the emotional security to listen to the people below them and adopt a top-down dictatorial style to cover their insecurity. Vargo here is indicating that both his inexperienced predecessor Jason Ravnsborg and the inexperienced campaign contributor Ravnsborg appointed to run DCI, David Natvig, managed in just that insecure fashion.
Republicans almost screwed up their A.G. nomination this year, too, allowing Natvig to come within a few delegate votes of winning the A.G. nomination over experienced and qualified former Attorney General Marty Jackley. Primaries can go wrong, too—just review the 2016 Republican Presidential primary, which placed the least qualified of all Republican contenders on the ballot and in the White House. But perhaps primary voters are a little less susceptible to the insider arse-kissing that got Ravnsborg and Natvig into office, to the detriment of operations in South Dakota law enforcement.
Other than Tatewin Means who might have run in an SDDP primary for AG?
This is what happens when you let a group who are largely insaner than most, such as the delegates, pick the guy who gets to have the (R) behind his name on the general election. The (R) brand will win, but you’ve got inferior product in the package. This is going to be the case with Ms. Monae this year. One day soon we will all talk about the trifecta of Jabba the Gant, the Killer Ravnsborg, and the Pretty Young Receptionist Gal…failures all.
Hmmmm… “top down management?” Where have we seen that before? ;-)
Bingo, Loren! Friends who are lifelong Republicans tell me they are leaving the ballot blank this year on Governor precisely because the current top down manager lacks common sense, personal maturity, loyalty to her job and any evidence of competence to hold office. Hence, she’s surrounded herself with dumb-dumbs and malcontents like Ian Furry and Corey Lewandowski. She forces her party into one of two positions: Nod your head and pretend this is “normal” or walk away.
The trifecta with Jabba the Gant and the Killer Ravnsborg was already completed with Noem as Governor. The incompetent baboon Monae is just more of the same from a political party that stands for nothing, knows nothing, completely lacks intellectual curiosity and has no capacity to govern … other than the blind loyalty to a brand that is now forever compromised by Trumpism, violence, The Big Lie and treason to the United States of America.
Another example of “top down management” is the complete botch Noem is making of South Dakota education standards, particularly those in the social studies area.
Indeed, Don. In the coming months the vast majority of South Dakota residents will be waking up to a major hangover ginned up by Noem’s victory wrecking the education system based on her completely false premise about Critical Race Theory. Now, mix that with the gate swinging open to all the nutjobs hoping to further wreck women’s reproductive rights and targeting transgender South Dakotans and everyone’s right to choose who they love. It would be laughable except that Noem has now injected a poison that will generate more poison as we watch one dumb hick stand up after another dumb hick spewing lies about a vast liberal conspiracy in public education. This will force a downward spiral that will infect more than curriculum in schools. Think Kitty Werthmann on acid. Think Afghanistan.
That hangover gets worse by the corrupt justice system letting Noem thumb her nose at the rule of law over the violation of the state airplane law and the Sherry Bren harassment to give her kid a job after repeatedly the failing certification test. We’ll be seeing a lot more of the same, as well as an emboldened lame duck behave Noem completely untethered from her obligations as governor so she can fly from state to state in her absurd quest to be a national contender.
The only ray of sunshine will be her absence in Pierre until she’s laughed out of Iowa and off the national stage. Three electoral votes in a deeply red state don’t mean diddly to any national ticket. She’s not going to like waiting out her second term as governor, stuck in that mansion next to the slough we call Capitol Lake.
“There are no bad regiments, only bad colonels.” – Napoleon Bonaparte
The Republican Party, state wide and nationally is a horror show of thugs and murderers. Hit Nancy Pelosi’s husband over the head with a hammer, and claim it’s his fault because he didn’t have enough security in the house. (Speaker Pelosi’s security goes with her. She was out of town.)Attempt to kidnap and probably kill the Governor of Michigan…entire militias were involved in that plot. These goons are considered “Patriots” by the Party. Attempt to hang the Vice President, kill police officers,and vandalize the Capitol, then promise the insurrectionists a pardon, as soon as Trump is President. Put up all kinds of totally incompetent characters as state and local candidates, and flood voters with mail and clutter the airwaves with Orwellian advertisements paid for by outfits like Americans for Prosperity. And always viciously attack your opponent. Governor Noem is right in the middle of this rabble of heavily armed and dangerous traitors.
Goodness once the inept inbred republicans crash the constitution of both states and national I hope my tribe and others go to world tribunal to let them know that one side of the treaty signers are now out of business. It can be assured my tribe’s immigration laws will be better enforced to keep the nut cases out of our home lands. Maybe the tribes can get together and “removal” those old now new immigrants to a certain part of the newly formed Nations of Aboriginal Peoples where we can keep an eye on them. Maybe even setting up boarding schools for their children to knock the snot of them for speaking English and practicing their pagan religions that caused them to lose their country. For sure there will be no more treaty making; look where that got tribal nations.
Come on 45, queen clown Noem and all the other nut cases hurry and wreck the constitutions and the rule of laws. The state and national constitutions are fundamentally dependent on reasonable people action for the common interests. This mindset has been diminishing over time. Once broken beyond repairs would be time for tribes to say enough is enough, time to address the immigration flaws that allowed the nuts cases to come and stay a few centuries ago.
Sure Natives will turn out to vote as we watch things fall apart. Look what happened previously in South Dakota with close elections, and in the last election in AZ, when red became blue. Heck Natives even helped a write in candidate in AK a few elections ago. Of course she fell in line with 45 on giving consent and advice on a drunken lying abuser or the lady with minimum legal background but who stands strong on minimizing a woman’s control over her body and health care.
I voted. I now wait. Never thought I would see the lawlessness and bold face attempts to high jacket elections in my life time.
Hurry queen clown Noem get yourself elected and continue what the inept inbred Republicans stated decades ago.
Cory writes:
Joe Boever took nearly a month’s worth of the psychotropic drug lorazepam in less than 36 hours, disabled his truck by smashing it into a bale beside the highway hard enough to force the grille guard back into the grille, left town on foot after dark, didn’t ask anyone for a ride, declined a ride offered by a passing motorist, and never told anyone why he was out there.
Jason Ravnsborg looked down at the speedometer as he was transitioning between speed zones, and Joe entered the driving lane to commit suicide. Joe’s impact with the extreme right side of the car angled it suddenly onto the shoulder, and Jason reflexively swerved back to the left before he could even process what was happening.
The collision ten feet outside the white line happened when Joe’s body came off the hood. That’s why all of the blood from that collision was on the bottom right side of the car, with none of it on the top of the car. It didn’t angle the car into the ditch because Joe’s body already had westward momentum and because Jason was already swerving back to the left.
Governor Noem’s DPS secretary and rabid Marty Jackley supporter Craig Price says Jason just happened to be driving ten feet outside the white line at the precise location of a late-night pedestrian who’d taken nearly a month’s worth of lorazepam in less than 36 hours. As Marty Jackley is presumably capable of figuring out, that would have been a mind-bending freak coincidence if it had really happened.
In a flagrant abuse of power, Secretary Price also released information taken out of context from Jason’s personal text messages, unrelated to any investigation, to smear him in the media and prejudice public opinion against him.
Jason didn’t commit the crime of illegal lane change because Joe’s impact with the extreme right side of the car is what angled it onto the shoulder. That means the first article of impeachment was false.
Jason didn’t make a direct misrepresentation to the 911 dispatch officer because the path of a vehicle near the middle of its lane is commonly called the middle of the road. That means the second article of impeachment was false.
Why would Mark Vargo say the collision on the extreme right side of the car, which was allegedly traveling over 60 miles per hour roughly a foot from the edge of the pavement, didn’t angle it into the ditch?
Why would Vargo say the amputation of Joe’s leg didn’t leave any of its blood on the top of the car?
How would Vargo say someone knew to add Scott Odenbach to the anonymous billboard attacking Jason’s supporters in the legislature before Representative Odenbach’s involvement became public? Is Vargo investigating this?
Jason Ravnsborg won the Republican nomination for attorney general in 2018 largely because he was a kind, honest man. Marty Jackley is the devil of South Dakota politics, and Mark Vargo is Jackley’s hand puppet. Jackley obviously knows it’s extremely unlikely that any challenger could raise enough money to expose his corruption to marginally engaged voters in a statewide primary, and he’s obviously trying to pull up the drawbridge to any real democratic accountability while he’s in the castle.
Let’s admit Mr. Evans is a mystic with accelerant and spark lurking at the fringes of South Dakota politics with testimony whispered on shared pillows some of us can only imagine.
Thank you so much for coming forward, Kurt.
Kurt Evans has it all figured out. Much in line with rigid, alienated mathematical thinking correlated with autism spectrum disorder.
https://www.sciencealert.com/autism-spectrum-disorder-mathematical-ability-hyper-systemised-thinking
I’d written:
Larry Kurtz writes:
No shared pillows, Larry, but I do manage an occasional communication that the agents of so-called “law enforcement” can’t unconstitutionally seize and archive.
How does one subscribe to Mr. Evans’ newsletter? I won’t share it with Mr. Jackley or his puppet minions. Nope.
Jason Ravnsborg had to kill a man for the SDGOP to finally get fed up and remove an incompetent elected official from office. What does Noem have to do to get 96’s lifelong-Republican friends to work up the same courage to remove an unqualified governor? Removing Noem at the election should be easier than removing Ravnsborg by impeachment. Impeachment is a grave departure from normal procedure, to be used only in the gravest circumstances. Ravnsborg gave us those gravest circumstances. Removing an incumbent at election time is perfectly normal and healthy. It’s what we are supposed to do when an elected official abuses her office, uses her power to do favors for her family, and shows a lack of competence for daily governing. Yet the best 96’s GOP friends can do is leave the governor’s slot on the ballot blank? They can’t take the logical and hardly courageous step of casting as secret ballot for different management?
I know invoking Ibram Kendi won’t help stir 96’s GOP friends to positive action, but it’s not enough to not be Noemist; to make things better, you have to be anti-Noemist. You can’t just say, “I sure wish Noem weren’t our governor”; you have to use the full force of your ballot to make someone else governor.
Even if Ravnsborg hadn’t killed a man, his poor leadership and cronyism, as attested by A.G. Vargo, should have roused the GOP to boot him this year and nominate Jackley in his place.
Don’t wait for Kristi to kill someone (well, she already did kill thousands of people with her coronavirus recklessness, so if death on the flow is your voting issue, we have that). Vote Noem out while you have the chance.
Cory writes:
Why would you say the amputation of Joe’s leg didn’t leave any of its blood on the top of the car, Cory? Why would you say the collision on the extreme right side of the car, which was allegedly traveling over 60 miles per hour roughly a foot from the edge of the pavement, didn’t angle it into the ditch? And why would you say neither Seth Tupper nor any other prominent South Dakota journalist has had the integrity to raise these questions?
Marty Jackley is the devil of South Dakota politics, and Mark Vargo is Jackley’s hand puppet.
Stu Whitney wrote in April:
As I’d pointed out in my first comment above, Governor Noem’s DPS secretary and rabid Marty Jackley supporter Craig Price says Jason just happened to be driving ten feet outside the white line at the precise location of a late-night pedestrian who’d taken nearly a month’s worth of lorazepam in less than 36 hours. As Jackley is presumably capable of figuring out, that would have been a mind-bending freak coincidence if it had really happened.
In a flagrant abuse of power, Secretary Price also released information taken out of context from Jason’s personal text messages, unrelated to any investigation, to smear him in the media and prejudice public opinion against him.
Then Governor Noem raised the pay of Price’s subordinates without direct legislative approval:
https://dakotafreepress.com/2022/09/02/noem-raising-highway-patrol-pay-without-direct-legislative-approval/
Jason Ravnsborg indicated that Governor Noem’s illegal misuse of the state plane to raise her national political profile at public expense was deliberate and impeachable. Jackley and Vargo conspired with her to cover it up.
How would Vargo say someone knew to add Scott Odenbach to the anonymous billboard attacking Jason Ravnsborg’s supporters in the legislature before Representative Odenbach’s involvement became public? Did Governor Noem ask Joe Desilets to resign? Is Vargo investigating any of this?
There is little doubt Messrs. Jackley, Vargo and Ravnsborg have abused their offices countless times simply because they’re Republican lawyers in a red state and it’s been happening long before them. Jason Ravnsborg was looking at his phone when he killed Joe Boever. Marty Jackley covered up evidence in Rich Benda’s alleged suicide and Mark Vargo sweeps police brutality and shootings right into the burn barrel.
Pierre is a black hole by design and nothing will ever change that.
Larry Kurtz writes:
Jason’s phone had been locked east of Highmore, and it wasn’t unlocked until he unlocked it to call 911 a few seconds after the crash. He was still on the edge of the Highmore lights during the initial collision and hadn’t even had time to set the cruise control and switch to high beams. That’s why Craig Price’s own report indicates that Jason may have had less than 0.7 seconds to see Joe.
He looked down at the speedometer as he was transitioning between speed zones.
Our public funds pay the investigators, but Jackley shields them from accountability. Maybe their names will be on Jackley’s long list of “law enforcement” endorsements as he continues his obsessive perpetual campaign for governor.
I didn’t say Ravnsborg’s phone wasn’t locked; I said he was looking at it.
Jason Ravnsborg is a criminal who not only lied to investigators he lied about lying. That he has never been prosecuted for his crimes means South Dakota’s insane legislature condones negligent homicide. It happened in Brady Folkens’ case, too.
Ravnsborg’s insurance company paid Jenny Boever because Joe died a wrongful death.
Larry Kurtz writes:
So your position is that Jason had the self-control to stop using his phone as he approached Highmore, but that he didn’t have the self-control to reset the cruise control and switch back to high beams before he started looking at it again? Would you also say looking at his phone somehow prevented him from noticing that he’d driven ten feet outside the white line, and that all four of the car’s wheels had crossed the rumble strip?
The insurance company paid Jenny because of rabid Marty Jackley supporter Craig Price’s fictitious and preposterous “reconstruction” of the crash.
Mr. Evans said:
Your statements clearly prove what my close personal friend Lar is saying: Mr. Ravnsborg had an inordinate and inappropriate fixation with his phone, and he stared at it lovingly as he rocketed to high speed in the 35-mph zone of Highmore Town. He had but one hand on the wheel, and he was cackling manically as he thrust his foot harder and harder to the floorboard. Why did he laugh, so, you might ask? Why, it was because he was earning free points for not using his other phone.
Plus, it was well suspected by many that Mr. Ravnsborg, spurned by that one gal, drove on the rumble strips intentionally for the thrilling sensations and had his car shocks set to maximize the experience. This is something my good fried Bob knows more about, but it is a thing.
Its just a silly Halloween meme
https://imgflip.com/tag/ted+cruz+grandpa+munster
It’s a family. All Mammal. #grins
https://imgflip.com/i/17jr50
I’d replied to Larry Kurtz:
“grudznick” writes:
Jason didn’t commit the crime of illegal lane change because Joe’s impact with the extreme right side of the car is what angled it onto the shoulder. That means the first article of impeachment was false.
Jason didn’t make a direct misrepresentation to the 911 dispatch officer because the path of a vehicle near the middle of its lane is commonly called the middle of the road. That means the second article of impeachment was false.
If he’d been looking at his phone at the time of the crash, both articles of impeachment still would have been false, and Mark Vargo still would have used an avalanche of reckless, bombastic falsehoods during the senate trial to compensate for a lack of real evidence and drive Jason out of office.
But Jason wasn’t looking at his phone. He looked down at the speedometer as he was transitioning between speed zones.
Mr. G- that is a thing. Once that thrill losses effect, he might raise the bar by scribbling the number of his covert cell phone on the stall wall inside a seedy bar. Once there are sufficient bar stall walls displaying the good-time covert number, he powers said phone up and deliberately switches it to vibrate. Once in his Taurus, he tucks covert phone nice and snug in the lap and waits for the hour to approach. By the time the buzzing begins, he is veering towards that rumble strip on some lonely county road. Destination rapture or bust. Least thats what I overheard before.
All Mammal’s theory has as much credibility as Evans’.